Edmonton Oilers' Connor McDavid, back, and Milan Lucic celebrate McDavid's goal against the Vancouver Canucks during the second period of an NHL hockey game in Vancouver, B.C., on Friday October 28, 2016.DARRYL DYCK / THE CANADIAN PRESS

After 10 years, six general managers, four coaches and zero playoff appearances, the putrification of the Edmonton Oilers appears to be over. Connor McDavid will do that for a team.

Actually, Milan Lucic will do that for you, and Kris Russell and Patrick Maroon and Adam Larsson and Cam Talbot — with McDavid’s help.

McDavid scored the only goal that mattered Friday, breaking a scoreless tie at 11:31 of the second period when he outskated the Vancouver Canucks’ backcheck, split their defence and squeezed the puck under goalie Ryan Miller, who appeared to have it covered until it appeared in the net behind him.

Yeah, Markus Granlund could have been better on the backcheck, defenceman Ben Hutton was caught a tad wide, Erik Gudbranson could have made a better read and Miller could have stopped the breakaway. But McDavid’s goal was one only a few players in the world could have generated. Think of Pavel Bure around 1994.

Lucic’s empty-netter capped a 2-0 Edmonton win.

“He’s the fastest player I’ve ever played against,” Hutton said. “He knows when to fly the zone and once he gets going, he’s got that extra gear no one else has. He’s a remarkable player.”

The Canucks were as good as the Oilers in most areas, better at a couple. They played with far more urgency and intensity than their meek 3-0 loss to the Ottawa Senators on Tuesday. Granlund could have scored a minute before McDavid did but was robbed by Talbot. Sven Baertschi should have scored late in the third period but missed the net with Talbot beaten by Bo Horvat’s pass.

But the Canucks have no McDavid, no one to change a game like he can.

And for two games now, the Canucks have had no goals. Their 4-0 start has deteriorated to 4-3-1, and now they’ve got Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals, rested and waiting, at Rogers Arena Saturday night. Then the Canucks embark on a difficult six-game road trip.

It’s too early to panic. But better note where the life rafts are just in case.

The Oilers, who have averaged under 70 points for the last seven seasons, are 7-1.

After a decade of building teams on the draft lottery and a sink-or-swim mentality that had entitled teenagers gagging on sea water, these Oilers look different than other teams not only because McDavid is too great to fail, but because the guys in charge finally have the right idea.

Coach Todd McLellan and general manager Peter Chiarelli understand an 18-year-old isn’t instantly the foundation, but the impressive building material you stack on the foundation.

“I think more than anything, it’s the commitment and the wanting to change that’s been most impressive,” Lucic, the Oilers’ $42-million US free agent from East Vancouver, said Friday morning of the culture-change occurring in Edmonton.

“Wanting to turn the page of the last six, seven, eight years. Having that want to change is more than anything. It’s easy to say to do it, but to exactly commit yourself to doing it is something I’ve seen around here that’s pretty special to be a part of.

“I think 100 per cent it’s culture. It’s maybe guys coming in too young with too high expectations and not really knowing how to deal with it. And then the quicksand starts to happen and negativity creeps in, and new culture isn’t able to be created.”

It’s impossible to build in quicksand.

New and relatively new players such as Lucic, 28, Maroon, 28 and Russell, 29 – players with experience and character to go with ability – have helped make the ground solid down to the permafrost in Edmonton.

“They’ve started to add older players now,” veteran Canuck winger Jannik Hansen observed at the morning skate. “I’d say they’ve gone the opposite way this year. Previously, they always drafted high and were throwing (draft picks) in the lineup and hoping that they’d be able to make a difference.

“When you look at their lineup now, there’s a lot of older guys pulling their weight, complementing the young guys. There’s a lot of things that need to come together for a team to start winning, and obviously theirs has been a work in progress for quite a while.”

And McDavid drives it all.

“He’s a special hockey player for sure,” Gudbranson said. “I saw him in pre-season; I thought he was pretty electric then. Now that he’s in full-season swing . . . he’s pretty good.

I thought we did a pretty good job against him today. At the end of the day, holding him to one point, as crazy as it sounds, is actually pretty good.”

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